A jury in Texas found a police officer charged with child abandonment from the debacle in Uvalde, Texas not guilty. The officer is one of two officers charged criminally.
This is a case based solely on appeasing the public outcry which followed the deaths of children in an elementary school.
Law enforcement officers would have no issues with the charges had the officer run away from the school when the shots rang out. But this officer ran towards the gunfire and rushed into the school to mitigate the armed suspect entering the school.
The event was a tactical nightmare scenario, not because of any cowardice of the horde of officers who arrived at the scene, but was exacerbated by the lack of command presence at the scene. Both the acting city police chief and the school police chief were at the scene and not in a position to provide leadership.
Those mistakes do not rise to the level of criminal conduct, and the District Attorney of the County should have known that. The fact that officers were charged in this case should create fear in any officer sworn to enforce the law, and it is a stain on the criminal justice system.
The trial of the other officer charged in this case has not yet occurred. That is the Police Chief of the School Police.
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